Teaching to stop being a graduate-only profession - 18 year old teachers.

[noblegiraffe]

There were rumblings about this a while ago when the apprenticeship levy was introduced, but it looks like Justine Greening is going to introduce an apprencticeship route into teaching.

schoolsweek.co.uk/greening-teaching-will-cease-to-be-only-for-university-graduates/

I'm very concerned that in secondary schools, specialist subject knowledge won't be a pre-requisite for going into the classroom, it will be seen as something that can be picked up across the years, shortchanging the classes who get the apprentice in the first few years of the training (how long is an apprenticeship?).

In primary school, the education of a class for a full year could fall to someone just out of school themselves.

This isn't just about training on-the-job, we already have that as a route into teaching. This is about deprioritising a certain level of education for teachers and devaluing the profession. It's saying you don't need to be well-educated to teach, because you could be teaching straight out of school. The 'learning how to teach' part of any teacher training programme is so intense, that acquiring degree-level subject knowledge will certainly not be a priority from the start.

The wage for apprentices means this is just another way for schools to get teachers on the cheap and hang the consequences for education.

And knowing how many parents already view young teachers, fresh out of uni and just finished their PGCE, how will they take to having their child being taught by someone who hasn't even been to university?

That is disgusting. 18 year olds are not ready to walk into the classroom and teach - this is why we study child development, class management, educational theorists...what a joke of an idea. It devalues the profession.

And as for Hayeskying I take it you're not a teacher?

I like the idea. Sorry.

Too many jobs are closed to only those with a degree from a university. Students need to see they have the option to pursue any career (that doesnt involve diagnosing people) through alternative routes. My experience is that high school teachers are always talking about how brilliant apprenticeships are and as parents we shouldn't dismiss them as a genuine higher educational opportunity for our children.

Surely teachers should know more than anyone that there are students who would be bloody good at a job but just didn't quite get the grades. This will open up teaching to those students who may make brilliant teachers and they gain all the experience of hand on teaching supported by the people who know about teaching ie teachers themselves.

Nursing has apprenticeships and I feel if they can do it, while providing life saving care, then I certainly don't see why teaching can't do the same.

Nursing has apprenticeships and I feel if they can do it, while providing life saving care, then I certainly don't see why teaching can't do the same.

Yup.

Nursing apprenticeships exist - and are a great idea.

Teaching ones can work too as long as the right person is doing it, a TA for example with experience in the classroom. Lessons have to be taught by a qualified teacher - that's not going to change is it? An apprentice wouldn't be qualified so they wouldn't be in sole charge of a class.

Schools' apprenticeship levies need spending - it's not a bad way to spend it.

I do not see this actually happening.

Hayesking

"Scorn" ?? How about tired desperation.

When you have an 18 year old in front of a class who struggles to control them, fails to address individual needs, can't spot potential issues. When that 18_year old is crying in the staff room and someone is picking up the pieces, it's not scorn, among other emotions it's sadness for the pupils.

You are focusing on YOUR daughter's needs. Good teachers focus on other peoples children.

I'm totally against it. I am a teacher. I was once an 18 year old. There is no bloody way I could have done this at 18!!

Maybe we could have schools for the people who support it to send their children to, and then another set of schools for the people who want qualified professionals to teach their children?

Then the government would save their money and people like Haye would be happy.

After all, an 18 year old fresh from sitting their a levels can surely teach the same a level to someone who might only be a few months younger?

Or they could be responsible for 30 crying 4 year olds on the first day of term. Brilliant.

Do let us know how it works out

I do. Except it'll be a normal degree apprenticeship and thus teaching will remain a graduate profession as it should. although the Institute for Apprenticeships will take forever to approve the standards so don't hold your breath

titchy acadamies don't have to employ qualified teachers now.

I hate the idea but I am wondering if it better or worse than employing nownaualified teachers.

It is a ridiculous attempt to stem the recurtiment and retention crisis in teaching.

I'm not 100% sure a degree is absolutely necessary to teach at primary level.

You're not sure because you don't know what is involved with the teaching of young children. I have an honours degree and a masters and I still find my job as a KS1teacher intellectually challenging. Everyone knows how to read, write and do simple maths but that doesn't mean they know how to teach it. You have to understand child development, language acquisition and so much more. There is continual change in the curriculum and you have to be able to cope with that and adapt. I often come across NQTs who can't plan because they have got through their whole training using plans provided by other teachers. It all falls apart when they suddenly find themselves in a single entry school with a new curriculum to plan.

be bloody good at a job but just didn't quite get the grades.

You not only think you don't need a degree to be a teacher but also have such poor A-level results that you couldn't get onto a degree course?

Apprentice wages are crap. (because they are providing free training)

Can see this being grabbed at with glee by primary schools - It is a way to get rid of TAs (on at least minimum wage which is higher than apprenticeship wages) easily- have an apprentice in each class, a teacher overseeing a couple of classes - cut the wages budget AND appear to be supporting young people in their training.
(The young people who will be mainly out of work when their apprenticeship ends as they will then cost more )

There is continual change in the curriculum and you have to be able to cope with that and adapt. this is not necessarily a skill peculiar to graduates

This is another insult to teachers in my opinion.

Haye - isn't your dd only year 7 ? You've posted on another thread that she's only just started at secondary ?

It sounds like a terrible idea to me. Didn't teachers have to fight for it to be recognised as a degree educated professionals in the first place? My elderly mother was a teacher and was always bitterly disappointed that her qualification was called a 'teaching certificate' or something along those lines despite having done her three years of full time study at the teacher training department of a well respected university. She was delighted when younger teachers were able to study a degree in education, or a degree then a PGCE.

But this isn't going to increase the value of apprenticeships, is it? What will happen is it will further devalue the profession because you don't even need to have a degree to do it, you just need an apprenticeship.

Not that this has anything to do with that anyway. It's just finding away to reduce the money schools need to spend on staff and plug the staffing gap.

• what mousse says. The new pharmacy tech apprenticeship will get exactly the same supervision as the old BTech+NVQ 3 route with the normal level of checking. I don't see how you could do that with teaching unless you are employing a full time teacher + an apprentice for the same class. And I don't see many schools doing that with the budget cuts.

Lessons have to be taught by a qualified teacher - that's not going to change is it?

No they don't. Routes like Teach First and Schools Direct mean trainee teachers pretty much do the job from day 1. No one else is the class teacher for their class. With PGCE students it's different.

I am lucky to have a TA nowadays. The government should be ashamed of themselves. What next???????

The government is casting around in desperation to find fresh meat to throw to the insatiable devouring machine that is the British education system.

There is no point arguing about suitability, qualifications, career progression, mental health prospects......

it can walk, mumble 100 words or more in at least half understandable English, cannot be demonstrated to have committed a violent crime in the past and is prepared to stand in front of a class??

Put it in front of a class,

it isn't likely to survive any more than a couple of years at most, so QUICK!!! next he next victims lined up as fast as in humanly possible.

You don't need to worry about the scorn an 18 year old teacher would get from the teaching profession, but the scorn they'd get from the parents and especially from the kids (don't know about primary, but secondary? Bloody hell).

Snap shot one of my teaching groups:
Mixed ability
One visually impaired, two severely autistic, three behavioural, one EAL the rest of the class mixed ability ranging from various SEN / G & T. NO TA.
Could I see an apprentice being able to teach this group effectively? No. Not fair on the class or the apprentice.
It is a short cut into the profession that the government would implement for one reason alone - cuts to funding.

ana I have four dds!

You wouldn't want them to survive more than a couple of years silver. Once they'd completed the apprenticeship you'd actually have to pay them and we couldn't have that.

Back in the '70s, the minimum qualifications required to get into teachers' training college was 5 O-levels. To become a primary school teacher, one needed to obtain a certificate of education; there was no need for a degree. It all changed in 1976 when the B.Ed. was introduced.

Personally, I think that primary school teaching is as much about aptitude as it is about educational level - and at secondary level, a teacher could be an expert in their subject and have a PhD, but still be an uninspiring and poor teacher. It's not all about qualifications.